Chapter 3 - THE PHOTOGRAPH
Sadi stared at him.
“No.”
Victor placed the photograph on the desk.
“My father died nine years ago.”
“My mother died nine years ago.”
That silenced him.
Sadi swallowed.
“Car accident. Hit-and-run.”
“When?”
“October seventeenth.”
Victor’s face hardened.
“My father was killed October fourteenth.”
Three days.
Sadi looked at the photograph again.
Her mother’s blue coat.
Arturo Costello.
The gold watch.
The message.
“Why would he write about us?”
“I don’t know.”
“Why would my mother never tell me?”
“I don’t know.”
“You’re Victor Costello. Aren’t you supposed to know everything?”
Something tired passed through his eyes.
“Apparently not.”
Sadi backed away from the desk.
She suddenly hated the room.
The wealth.
The polished wood.
The armed men outside.
Her mother had died while Sadi was fifteen and Sam was seven.
For nine years, Sadi had believed a drunk driver had taken Ruth Hayes away.
Now a dead mafia boss had written her mother’s name on the back of a photograph.
Victor’s phone rang.
Luca again.
“We have Declan.”
“Talk.”
“He wasn’t carrying a weapon.”
Sadi looked up.
Victor put the call on speaker.
Luca continued.
“He says he was never supposed to touch the boy.”
Sadi moved closer.
“What?”
A second voice came through.
Male.
Nervous.
Declan.
“I was supposed to be seen.”
Sadi’s hands curled into fists.
“You stood outside my brother’s room.”
“I know.”
“You let Mick tell me he would shut off Sam’s machines.”
Declan was silent.
Then he said, “That was Mick.”
“And you helped him.”
“Yes.”
At least he didn’t lie.
Victor leaned over his desk.
“What does O’Shea actually want?”
Declan breathed heavily.
“Not twenty thousand.”
Sadi felt sick.
Victor’s eyes narrowed.
“What?”
“The blue coat.”
Sadi turned toward the photograph.
Her mother was wearing it.
Declan continued.
“Mick said the girl would understand.”
“I don’t understand anything,” Sadi snapped.
“He said Ruth kept what she took inside that coat.”
Victor’s gaze moved to Sadi.
“What happened to it?”
Sadi tried to remember.
After their mother died, she had been responsible for everything.
Funeral arrangements.
Rent.
Sam’s school.
Selling furniture.
Learning to make seven dollars stretch for four days.
“I kept it.”
“Where?”
“My apartment.”
Victor grabbed his jacket.
Sadi blocked him.
“You’re not coming.”
“Yes, I am.”
“My apartment isn’t part of your territory.”
“Tonight it is.”
“You don’t get to own everything.”
Victor stepped closer.
“No. But someone threatened your brother because of something connected to my family. That makes this my responsibility.”
Sadi almost laughed.
“Responsibility?”
She pointed at the photograph.
“My mother died three days after your father, and you didn’t even know her name.”
Pain flashed across his face.
Real pain.
“I know.”
The answer took the anger out of her for half a second.
Victor picked up the photograph and slid it into his coat.
“Which is exactly why I’m going.”
Twenty minutes later, they reached Sadi’s apartment building.
Victor had wanted two men with them.
Sadi refused.
He compromised with Luca waiting downstairs.
The front door of her apartment was already open.
Sadi stopped.
“No.”
Victor moved in front of her instantly.
“Stay here.”
“That’s my home.”
“Sadi.”
“My brother’s things are in there.”
His voice dropped.
“Stay behind me.”
This time she listened.
The apartment looked as if a storm had passed through it.
Couch cushions gutted.
Kitchen drawers dumped.
Mattress overturned.
Sam’s schoolbooks scattered across the floor.
A framed photograph of their mother lay broken near the refrigerator.
Sadi picked it up.
Ruth was laughing in the picture, one arm around eight-year-old Sadi while little Sam slept against her chest.
Victor saw Sadi’s thumb move across the shattered glass.
“They did this because of me.”
“No.”
“Because I borrowed from Mick.”
“This started before you knew his name.”
She looked at him.
He walked toward the bedroom.
“Where was the coat?”
“Cedar trunk.”
The trunk had been forced open.
Empty.
Sadi’s stomach twisted.
“It’s gone.”
Victor crouched.
“Maybe.”
He studied the floor.
Then the wall.
A strip of blue fabric was caught behind the radiator.
Sadi pulled it free.
“The lining.”
“They tore it out.”
She reached behind the radiator.
Her fingers touched something hard.
Metal.
Sadi pulled.
A heavy gold watch dropped into her palm.
Victor went absolutely still.
She looked from the watch to the photograph in his coat.
Same shape.
Same band.
Same dark scratch near the crown.
“No,” Victor whispered.
“What?”
He took the watch carefully.
Like it might explode.
His thumb moved over the engraving on the back.
For Arturo.
Come home alive.
Lucia.
Victor closed his eyes.
“My mother gave him this on their twentieth anniversary.”
Sadi could barely breathe.
“Then why did my mother have it?”
Victor turned it over.
The hands had stopped.
11:17.
“She could have found it.”
“Or taken it,” Sadi said bitterly.
Victor looked at her.
“I didn’t say that.”
“You thought it.”
“I think everything until I know better.”
Sadi folded her arms.
“What did the police say happened to your father?”
“They didn’t investigate.”
“Of course they didn’t.”
Victor ignored the judgment.
“My father was found in his car near the river. Shot once. The watch was listed among the missing personal effects.”
Sadi looked at the gold face in his palm.
Her mother had hidden it for nine years.
Mick wanted it.
Arturo had written that Ruth knew the truth.
“What time did your father die?”
“Just before midnight.”
Sadi pointed at the frozen hands.
“Then why did his watch stop at 11:17?”
Victor turned toward her.
“Maybe it broke during the struggle.”
“Then whoever killed him was with him at 11:17.”
Victor’s expression changed.
He remembered something.
“My father called me that night.”
“When?”
“11:12.”
“What did he say?”
Victor stared at the watch.
“He said he’d made a mistake.”
Sadi waited.
“He told me not to trust anyone who claimed they were protecting the family.”
The apartment seemed to grow colder.
“Did he name someone?”
“No.”
Victor turned the watch over again.
His thumb found a tiny indentation near the back plate.
He pressed it.
The cover clicked open.
Something small fell onto the floor.
Not money.
Not a note.
A narrow brass key.
Sadi picked it up.
Victor looked at it once and swore under his breath.
“You recognize that.”
“Yes.”
“From what?”
Victor stared toward the doorway as if he could suddenly see nine years into the past.
“My father’s desk has one drawer no locksmith has ever been able to open.”
May you like
He closed his fist around the key.
“And Ruth Hayes just gave us the key.”
